2018 Summer Getaway

It's FRIDAY! We have a fun weekend planned with friends and our town is having it's yearly celebration. We are officially done with baseball and we all of the sudden have a ton of free evenings. SCORE! I am recapping our little family getaway today. You will definitely need some coffee because this will be PICTURE overload!

Last Saturday, my family packed up and headed east. Our first stop was for some lunch. Perkins for the win! HA. We didn't have a ton of options in the small town we stopped at.

Random fact about me: I really dislike fast food. I always have. When I was little, I would beg my parents to bring me to Subway instead of McDonalds, Burger King, or Hardees. I have never liked the smell or taste and I actually get a bad stomach after eating them. Having kids, we obviously eat fast food but I can't while we are going to be on the road.

We then headed to the Como Zoo in St. Paul!

Where we met my sister and her family. I don't see my niece and nephews enough and our kids get along so great so it was wonderful to spend time with them!

We spent a few hours at the zoo and at Como Town.

And then we spent some time swimming!

On Sunday morning, we packed up to head to Wisconsin Dells. We stayed at the Kalahari resort. This resort was AMAZING. The people were so nice, it was beautiful and clean, and our kids stayed BUSY. 

Kalahari has an outdoor waterpark (where most of my pictures take place and why we chose this particular resort), a big indoor waterpark, a bowling alley, a theme park, and a huge arcade. We stayed three nights which I think was the perfect amount. 

Of course, the boys' favorite part was the arcade...the only thing not included! We bought a package that gave us wristbands to the waterparks, theme park, and a few games of bowling. 

The best part: we met Dan's sister, Josie, and her family in the Dells. We haven't vacationed with them before but we will definitely be doing it again! The kids stay busy with each other and we enjoy their company. 

The only thing that was difficult was that Jace was not quite tall enough to keep up with Ashton and Jaxon on rides/slides. You have to be 48" to do all of the rides and anyone under 48" is supposed to wear a life jacket at all times. This made him feel like a little kid. He was super disappointed and refused to put on a life jacket. Lots of tears were shed.  I totally get why they do this...there are kids EVERYWHERE. The lifeguards were great, but it is a lot of kids to watch and some parents aren't super attentive. However, I wish it would be up to parent discretion. Jace is a wonderful swimmer and this definitely dampened our trip in the beginning.

You will notice I don't have pictures of the boys on the waterslides...they had SO MUCH FUN. But, I didn't take my phone on them to snap pictures, obviously.

We arrived shortly after noon and checked in. Our room wasn't ready but we were able to use all the facilities until it was ready. Rather than get our suits on, we decided to check out the theme park and arcade while we waited for the room to be ready.

While Jaxon did a challenging ropes course, Ella and I went on the ferris wheel!

Jace did the tots ropes course. He was not impressed. It was way too easy for him....stay tuned.

Ella loved the ferris wheel so Dan took her on it again. When you are in a theme park with a ton of big kid things, you do whatever you can to keep an 18 month old entertained!

This ropes course was crazy fun and included!

The kids got to decorate a cookie. Ella enjoyed the frosting... 

We received notification that our room is ready so we went to check in. This hotel is HUGE. We wanted to make sure we were in the main building (vs the Sands building which is quite a walk for the little ones). Although we requested to be in the main building, we were not expecting this view from our balcony. It was gorgeous! 

 After we checked into the room, we went outside for a little bit before supper.

We met up with everyone for supper at Ivory Coast Restaurant at the hotel.

 Boys side of the table!

Girls side!

After dinner, Dan took Ella up to bed and I went with everyone else to the theme park.

Harper mastered the tots ropes course!

Jaxon, Ashton, and Josie did the big ropes course!

I hung out with the girls on the carousel. 

On Monday morning, Ella woke up at 4am ready to go. Yes. 4am. Ugh. So early. We had a long day but we made the best of it and still had a lot of fun. The tough part about a hotel with an 18 month old is that when she wakes up, we are all in one room and she can't be quiet! She isn't in to any TV or quiet activities yet and so just went on long walks around the huge hotel. 

Once everyone was up, we went to breakfast and then the indoor water park.

Jaxon body boarding.

Jace body boarding

You will notice Ella has on this blue camo puddle jumper. With barely any hair, she certainly looks like a little boy :) 

This girl became so brave in the water. She started going down a lot of the slides, learned to swim by herself with the puddle jumper, and overall was a great kid! I have so many pictures of her because the boys were always on water slides and we didn't bring our phones with on those.

 We enjoyed a little snack on our balcony!

We then headed to the bowling area for pizza and bowling!

The boys were not happy to see this hanging up.

This was Harper's first time bowling and she did great!

 Oman Cousins

Our crew! The only group picture we took!

We decided to try out the theme park a little bit more....

And I took my turn on the ropes course. This was SCARY! We had to walk along a single rope. I don't know how I didn't fall or how people don't fall ALL.THE.TIME.

The best part? Jace was able to go with me and he did so great!

The boys did some laser tag and rides...

As long as Ella thought she was playing a game, she was happy ;) 

Tuesday pretty much looked the same! Ella was up at 5:30 so we had breakfast on the balcony and then walked around!

So happy to be up at 5:30!

These boys are so easy to travel with <3

And then it was time to go on Wednesday! Ella was up early and so we walked around again. Once the boys were up we packed the car up, went to breakfast, and headed back home!

We had such a wonderful time. The company was wonderful, the food was great, the hotel was clean, our rooms were large, and many memories were made!

If you are looking for a little family vacation, definitely consider Kalahari resort!